confession and profession.

Truth-telling, I hurt a lot. I crumble and far more often than I care to admit, I fall apart. I want to be someone who clings to hope - who shines brightly in the midst of the darkest night - and yet I am so very human and pain demands to be felt. I want to be “good at pain” I want to stand strong and maybe even Jedi ninja my way through it - but I really can’t. I can’t just buckle up my bootstraps and muster through it - or at least, I probably shouldn’t. I am learning more and more that we are all broken, we are all messy, and we are all desperately in need of a Rescuer. We need to spend time seriously looking at our pain, admitting it, sitting in it and giving it some space to exist, to breathe, to be real. Our pain shapes us, but it doesn’t have to define us or be the badge of honor we wear. It isn’t our name - it isn’t the sole identifier in our story. Chances are - it isn’t even close to the first thing someone mentions when they talk about you - even if it is the ONLY THING YOU THINK ABOUT. You know your pain in a way no one else does. You hear it echo, droning on, playing on repeat. You confront it day in and day out - but other people, they just see you. In fact, they probably see you as more beautiful BECAUSE of your pain… if you’ll let them in - if you’ll give them glimpses of the desperately hard and yet still enduring. 

I’ve been listening to a new podcast (well I listened to the entirety of season 1 in the period of about a week, so yeah, there’s that!) called FUNTHERAPY and I have to tell you it was so good for me. It was perhaps even healing to identify with aspects of people I respect and admire and recognize THEY HAVE PAIN. It might be different, but they’re broken and they don’t have it all figured out. They love Jesus and they live for Him and yet they cry out and experience longing and disappointment and suffering. I think so often we have this sense that we’re supposed to be ok and be strong and only live in our “put together” but we actually need to lean on one another and live broken together. We know that - but to truly live it is vulnerable and scary and so we retreat and hide and cry alone in the dark. I truly believe He will bring beauty out of our pain - and also use it to work wondrously in the lives of others - but we have to be willing to step into the light, to share, to boldly live our pain out loud.

So here I am. Confessing and professing. 

I am broken and even still, I have glorious hope. A hope that might not be evident in the midnight tears - but is deep and profound and will NEVER LEAVE ME NOR FORSAKE ME. His name is Jesus.